Expectations

This article has been recorded to audio for convenience. All Podcasts can be heard on: This Website (Podcast Episodes), Podbean, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Google Chrome, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and more.

Hello Sobertown,

Did you do something healthy recently?

Did you eat a healthy meal?

Did you go for a walk or exercise in some way?

Did you meditate?

Did you do something kind for somebody else?

When you completed this healthy act, what were your thoughts on what it did for you, your mind or your body?

Did you think to yourself… “Great work, that ought to keep me healthy for a few months?"

Likely no, because that would be a bit silly. But you probably did appreciate that this healthy act you undertook was a small positive step forward in your health and your life. That would be correct.

Making gains in our health is comparable to adding tiny amounts of money to a bank account on a regular basis. This bank account could be considered your life account or your health account.

The beauty of the bank account of health is that unlike real money, we are all placed on a relatively level playing field, relatively anyway, where we can choose to add to our account or we can withdraw and drain it. As with real bank accounts, draining them is a whole lot easier than saving and growing them. However, as with adding small amounts on a regular basis to a bank account, the result of making a contribution regularly is an eventual grand sum, to our health account this is a flourishing body and a healthier mind.

Building our health account takes serious investment. While so many daily obligations scream for our attention, work and family taking the majority of our days it requires us to plan and dedicate to find that time to exercise and to shop for and prepare healthy meals. Good health does not just happen, good health requires planning and effort. Quitting alcohol is no different though it can form the foundation of your health as it acts as a springboard for launching into other healthy habits. The day you successfully give up alcohol it could be considered like a giant chunk of cash being deposited into your health account, all of a sudden this giant drain on your account is removed and in its place grows a plethora of new healthy actions and directions like a dry and nutrient devoid garden bed stripped bare and cultivated with fresh and rich soil from which all the positive things in life can grow with no poisonous obstruction and grow they will, slowly and surely as the soil makes way for new life and the new life grips the garden bed with its roots to battle the breeze and hold firm as time goes by.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could suddenly inherit a lifetime of health and deposit this into our life’s account, never needing to contribute and being healthy and happy for the rest of our mortal days. But, the reality is, unlike real finances, there is no lotto, there is nobody who can give this to you, there is no inheritance, there is no quick fix, for all our technology and all our medicine, health remains simple, basic, hard work and repeat efforts. The closest thing to inheritance within the account of life and health is removal of that which holds it empty and for us, that is alcohol. We all wish we had the big income where we could deposit large chunks every day or week, but our human physiology limits us to making incremental gains in our mind, in our body, in our spirituality and these must be sustained habitually to continue growth. Alcohol is the vet bill that comes out of nowhere and drains your account, alcohol is the car accident you never saw coming and suddenly owe an excess of hundreds of dollars after being left without transport, alcohol is the digital thief who infiltrated your emails and has been watching your account for months until the time is right to strike and it takes the lot.

When I approached my own health in the past I attacked every vector in the reverse mindset to that which I should have. I now see this, but it took many years to figure out, hindsight right? First and foremost I molded my life in an effort to maintain health as well as humanly possible but while maintaining a life involving alcohol. For too long did I do this. I consumed and then ensured I trained hard almost every day. I painfully smashed my body physically the day after drinking, it sucked, it was hard, my heart rate was high, was it beneficial? Sure but less so and my growth in fitness plateaued and fluctuated for what I now know was an obvious reason, now I know, at the time I rationalised it as genetic potential or other factors, nope, just alcohol. Some days my training was like clawing my eyeballs out it was so hard, I would be low and train and hit highs some days and then others I would not at all. Unpredictability was a strong theme, I would make gains in strength or endurance some weeks and then it would go back downhill. I intensely analysed my program, it was not my program, it was the road block alcohol created, simple as that. I would also force good eating so I could justify drinking and take supplements daily, I ate food I often did not feel like consuming for its health benefits, this was effective at times then waned at times, such is the nature of hangover food cravings and consumption. I tried to engage in mental health techniques and meditation and this was profoundly difficult, my mind was a shit show, there was no clear, calm thought. My mind was like a warzone, unpredictable and it was just as like to have me delve within only to step on a landmine and blow a limb off as it was to give me clarity and calm. I cannot emphasise this enough, I cannot emphasise this enough, the mind was where the most profound effects were felt after drinking. So I had it backwards, I worked a million miles and hour to be “healthy” and to “counteract” the effects of drinking and allow myself a healthy life while drinking too much. There is no healthy life while drinking too much. This is a fallacy. This does not exist. You are not healthy if you drink too much regardless of what you do to counteract the drinking, the risk factors remain risk factors, the damage still occurs. Years and years I worked my butt off thinking I was cheating the system, I wasn’t. Were my attempts completely in vain? No of course not, exercise is still healthier than none generally speaking and an apple is still better than a donut, even if at night you drink heavily. But it will not counteract the negative effects of alcohol, these will remain. 11 months ago, I figured it out. 11 months ago I learned and I got it through my thick head that in fact I was putting in all of this effort while being dragged around by an unnecessary ball and chain. An epiphany was what best describes the feeling I had after a few months had passed and I saw clearly the detrimental effect drinking was having on my health account. I was effectively walking through life with a weight vest on, training with a weight vest on and as I brought a fork with healthy food on it to my mouth and invisible hand was trying to pull it away from my mouth. This was unnecessary, I was making my life, my eating, my training, my meditation more difficult that it needed to be and these things are difficult enough without a giant barrier. I finally realised, I can not reverse the effects. I can though, eliminate the cause. I can take off the weight vest and throw it in the bin. I have now done this. I am thankful I have been able. Alcohol is a burden to your health and you simply can not employ strategies to counteracts its effects, put down the liver pills. Just leave the booze behind, don’t moderate just leave it completely. You will see, give it enough time and you will see the resistance to living life lowers week by week, month by month. You will see.

It is human nature to want it all now, it is human nature to force hard when motivated and give it all away as it gets too hard. It is natural to ebb and flow in motivation. We are told and shown unrealistic images of who we should be, how we should look and that constant happiness is an achievable and valid goal… Fuck that, that’s a lie. But, a beautiful life, a healthy flourishing body, a calm mind and spiritual connectedness is achievable however this relates to your brain and body and their limitations.

Please , consider this. This is one of my firm beliefs. The end sum of many small efforts CONTINUED is exponentially greater than the total of short lived and UNSUSTAINED yet intense bouts of effort.

What do I mean by this statement? Even if you are not completing long, hard, intense efforts. Even if you are only completing small positive health efforts, if you continue these over a lifetime then these small efforts add up to far greater benefits to our health than intense and hard work which is not sustained for a lifetime or the long term.

Let me use weight training as an example: You start a program, you don’t plan well, you don’t have a good program or understanding of what it is you are going to be doing but you work hard, you lift hard. you become so sore that you can not move the next day after each session for the first weeks. You push through the pain and train and train. You lift heavier than you are conditioned to and than your technique. You injure yourself, you tear a tissue, you keep pushing through, you don’t warm up properly, you just want to go hard, you want results, fast. Weeks go by, you become stronger in ways, but injuries mount and motivations dips. Eventually you give up, you stop going to the gym. Just a few weeks go by and you lose any strength you gained, all over.

Let’s use the diet example. You want to lose weight and all of a sudden you feel a pang of motivation, you look in the mirror, f-yeah let’s do this! You go online and find an overpriced and under-researched meal replacement diet backed by an uneducated influencer. You order it and it comes, you start the diet as keen as can be. The determination is strong. You drink the terrible meal replacement liquid uselessness as recommended. You begin to drop weight as the overall calories you ingest are so low. You feel like crap, but you see the weight dropping so you continue, you hate it, you miss real food, you feel like exercising but you are so fatigued you cant even string a good walk together. Weeks go by, you lost weight quickly but the weight loss has slowed or stopped, you like the way you look kind of but you feel so drained. You falter and give in, you can’t stomach the thought of living on the diet you have been and the results have slowed. You give up, you eat and you try very hard not to overeat and yet you gain weight so fast it seems unreasonable. A few weeks later you have ballooned to a larger size than you were before you had the pang of motivation looking in the mirror, you don’t understand, it all seems unfair.

You see, there is a repeatable, a healthy and a sustainable dosage for most things in life. Take salts for example. Too little salt in your body or diet and you can die, too much salt and you can die, so like many things in life salt is something which we require but requires moderation and correct dosage in our life to sustain life and health. This applies to diet, to exercise, to effort, to everything, finding the healthy and sustainable dosage is key. Sometimes this is all the problem is, balance, sometimes we think too hard, we look too deep, we seek to specifically when we could simply be modulating what we currently do to slight increases in the positives and slight decreases in the negatives, and repeat. More simple than you may think. Alcohol though, alcohol is simple, not like salt, there is no minimum requirement in life, this does not exist no matter what you may have been told. There is nothing detrimental to including none in your life and this is the optimal dose, the optimal dose of alcohol is zero, whether you have a “problem” with it or not the correct dose is zero for humans, there is damage from any dose of alcohol, every swallow can cause damage and as dosage rises so does risk, so does damage.

This is the way we as humans are reactive and act on emotions and whims, looking for a short sharp intervention and overlooking the bigger picture. What if I was to say to these people in the example, hey, weight lifter, slow your roll, let’s do this. Give me 15-20 minutes of hard work every second day to begin with. Do a few sets of push ups, a few of plank and a few air squats then a nice big walk or light run. Simply performing this short routine sustained over a longer period of time would result in a larger net gain in strength and function than going hard for one month and then giving up, this can then grow into more advanced but sustainable work. What if I said to the dieter, hey, you don’t need an expensive apparently magic junk diet, you can just eat real food, meats and plants, stop the refined sugar and limit the meal size while not drinking alcohol and you will see gradual sustained results ongoing without causing malnourishment or other feelings of fatigue withdrawal or malaise.. What if the dieter accepted the truth that weight loss in a healthy manner should create weight reductions of only around 0.5% of your body weight per week and most methods exceeding this steady slow progress are going to result in eventual reversal of progress.

Ok so this article is not a lesson in training or diet, my point is that small, sustained efforts continued will always trump short term high intensity but unsustainable efforts.

This circles us back to EXPECTATIONS

When you embark on a journey toward any aspect of better health.

Mind

Body

Spirituality

Begin knowing that the journey to better health is infuriatingly incremental such that very often you can not even see the the results day to day, week to week, or sometimes even month to month.

So what this comes back to is your mindset and knowledge that the steps you are taking ARE bringing you closer to your goal. To achieve any gain in health you need to give it time, a lot of time and a lot of repeat efforts.

Example: When we strain a muscle by lifting, rest it and repeat while incrementally adding more load (weight) as we become capable, the muscle and its ability to generate force increase. But this is incremental, slow and gradual.

Do not consider other aspects of growth to be any different.

You do not meditate for one week and suddenly reach enlightenment

You do not train for one week and become an athlete

You do not eat healthy meals for one week and correct nutritional imbalances

You do not quit alcohol and become amazing, with a rewired brain in a week

Time and repeated efforts equal great future gains

The good news is that small, regular and sustained efforts. Small daily contributions to that bank account lead to big savings when you keep coming back and making the deposits. Key concepts are sustainable and long term. The longer these efforts become sustained, the less resistance your brain will produce as the habit becomes a normal part of your routine and the more your physical body will adapt such that tough efforts become very bearable and dare I say, enjoyable.

Quitting alcohol is no different, it requires daily work, sustained efforts and a return to the habit every single day. Those of us progressing through many months of sobriety can begin to see now how the return to the daily habit of abstaining from alcohol does lead to incredible changes in our body and mind, it just takes time and it must be sustained and repeated or the work is undone, just like building a bank account up slowly can be drawn down with one withdrawal, so too can our sobriety. A strong focus must be maintained on the seemingly simple techniques which reinforce WHY we chose this life and reinforce HOW we maintain it and HOW we squash the notion that we can go back. Small daily returns to the habits which allowed us to tap into this better life EVERY, SINGLE, DAY. Keep the pedal to the metal. Keep the throttle twisted back. Foot to the floor. Give it shit. Send it. Just keep returning to your tools and your reminders, whatever they are that allowed you this life, keep going back to them and do not stop.

One thing I know to be true in life is that when times are good, the tough will come, when times are bad, the sun will shine again. Life ebbs and flows. This is why complacency is not possible. Enjoy the good while it is good, but through the good, continue the work. Tough out the bad when life gets tough, keep doing the work, because through the work, the good will come. This is life, it can be tough, so be it, do the work good or bad, enjoy the good, ride out the bad, just like training, some days the power is there, the energy is full, some days the work is tough, but do the reps and accept it for what it is, just as long as you do the work.

Managing your expectations is not a negative thing, it is simply a tool. Understand the good will come with time and repeat efforts, sustainable change, manageable change, that is important: sustainable, achievable, manageable. Regular small deposits which eventually grow to a substantial chunk of change. You may not even see the shift at the time until you look back and realise you made it, in every aspect you will reach your goal and slide into it gradually, often completely unaware you made it. This is how our minds work and adapt to the new normal. That is why you have to consciously remind yourself where you came from. Get in your lovely car with fresh eyes every time you drive it and think actively “this is a bloody beautiful car” like you did when it was new and then you just got used to it and stopped appreciating it, ok that doesn’t work if you drive a bomb, but you get my point, we adapt to cease appreciating, you need to revisit and remind yourself or you will tire of feeling great. Sound stupid? Yeah it is, but you will, you will tire of feeling great. Don’t allow this. Do not allow this.

The most important thing in life’s pursuits is planning and conviction. You must know what the goal is. Fitness goals, living alcohol free, dietary goals etc. then once the goal has been established you must know what it takes to get to this goal. For a fitness example you must have a plan, a program and then you must plan when during each week you can reasonably get this done. You must visualise this and write it down or record it, then when it comes to the crunch you must reach this assigned time and do the work. The most important factor is faith, faith in your program, faith in your body, faith in your planning. You do not see the vegetables positively impacting your body, you do not see the cardiovascular system adapting and improving, you do not see the brain forming new connections and circuits. You need to have faith that with your repeat efforts this is happening and stay the path. Know it is right, know it is healthy, know each session or meal contributes to the overall and hold off on assessing and measuring until reasonable intervals. For example, measuring changes in strength is not necessary until at least 6 weeks of training or more, just know what the course is and stay the course, the changes will come, have faith and do not look for the growth in every session or every day. At long intervals we can reassess and then if changes are needed, we can adjust and continue. Good habits for life.

Quitting alcohol is an overwhelmingly positive change in your life. Not one person who ever quit alcohol who I have spoken to has said anything different, and not everybody who did so had a “problem”, abstaining from alcohol improves the lives of exactly one in one of us in my opinion, I like those odds. But it takes time, just stick to it, have faith and the changes will take care of themselves. Manage your expectations in the short term but have big aspirations for the long term.

With sobriety comes a myriad of growth, as we gain physically, mentally and spiritually from living a sober life, we at Sobertown have a tendency to continue to expand our minds and strengthen our bodies, just a side effect of ditching alcohol I guess.

Do your reps, know it helped, come back tomorrow, and go again.

Ok Sobertown, go and get it.

The Sobertown Blog articles and recordings are created as a means of assisting others in achieving and maintaining sobriety and freedom from alcohol. Experiences, entries, research and article content are that of the author and should be applied in a safe manner deemed best by the reader and applied safely, if relevant, with medical oversight. This is not medical advice and the author is not a medical doctor. No advice within is based on or crosses over with the authors profession or professional opinion as an AHPRA registered allied health practitioner or FA registered exercise professional.